The Do’s and Don’ts of Editing

I realize that my timing isn’t perfect for this post. At least, not for all of those WU-ers who are participating in NaNo this year– which after all is largely an exercise in letting your creativity and your story flow by NOT thinking about editing. But it’s been several years since NaNoWriMo fit into my writing schedule, and since for me this month happens to be largely devoted to edits, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been thinking about the process. If you’re in the process of an edit, maybe some of my strategies will work for you, too. And if you’re NaNO-ing, maybe it will come in handy once the month is over and you’ve (hopefully) got a solid part of your first draft down. So, my editing do’s and don’ts:

DO: Give yourself some time between finishing a draft of your story and picking it back up to edit. I’d say at an absolute bare minimum a week, but more time is probably even better. The distance will help you to see your story with fresh eyes during the editing process, which is vital to figuring out what weak spots need to be strengthened, what character arcs need to change, etc.

Don’t: Be afraid of the process. I actually love editing– once I get started. But when I first open up a book file with an editorial eye, I usually have a moment of near panic: Oh no! What if I read it and it’s absolutely terrible! That’s when I just have to remind myself to breathe and dive in. Messy first drafts can always be made better– that’s the point of an edit after all. And if your book was truly, irredeemably bad, it’s unlikely you would have managed to finish it to the point of having a draft to edit. So take heart and just click open the file. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised when the draft you thought was in shambles isn’t nearly as messy as you feared.

Do: Be willing to cut, cut, cut. Depending on your process, this step may vary for you–I know some authors write a very bare-bones first draft and then expand on it during edits== but for me, the first draft is all about getting everything in my head onto the page. Everything. Descriptions, long internal monologues, etc– I throw it all in. Your mileage may vary, but it works for me; that’s how I discover the essentials about my characters and their journey. Then the editing step for me is all about condensing that first draft down, eliminating the unnecessary and making each page of story as lean as possible while still holding onto the essentials I discovered in the first draft. I look at each sentence, asking myself whether it’s absolutely crucial to the story I want to tell. If not, out it goes.

Don’t: Push yourself to edit too quickly or work through too much in a single editing session. It can be easy to get sucked into your own story and start reading it as a reader instead of as the story’s architect that you are. Obviously when we read books for entertainment– even when we read critically– we’re probably not examining every single sentence with an eye to deciding whether it could be better/tighter/more effective. That effort is exhausting– but also essential. I find that I start losing focus after editing 4-5 chapters and need to take a break if I’m going to keep up with the intensity of the edit.

Do: Celebrate the process. Editing can feel overwhelming– after all you’re effectively spending your working days staring at a giant list of everything that’s wrong with your manuscript. But I’ve found that just taking it step by step cuts down significantly on the overwhelm. Even major plot issues are usually resolved much more easily than I feared if I just tackle them one at a time. And without wanting to sound too Pollyanna-like, I try to be grateful for the process, too. If you’re editing, that means you’ve finished a book– which is definitely cause for celebration. Even if the book isn’t ready for any eyes but yours, you’re still another step further down the road in your writing career.

What about you? What are your favorite editing tips? Are you doing NaNo this year?

Anna Elliott is an author of historical fiction and fantasy. Her first series, the Twilight of Avalon trilogy, is a retelling of the Trystan and Isolde legend. She wrote her second series, the Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, chiefly to satisfy her own curiosity about what might have happened to Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and all the other wonderful cast of characters after the official end of Jane Austen's classic work. She enjoys stories about strong women, and loves exploring the multitude of ways women can find their unique strengths. Anna lives in the Washington DC area with her husband and three children.

Comments

Your points are wonderful and so helpful, Anna; an important subject for all writers. I agree editing can be overwhelming. And editing is as much a craft as writing is a craft. Self-editing, not easy at all! Favorite editing tips? I find I need more than a week away from the first draft to approach it with a clean eye and a fresh perspective; my usual is a month in the deep freeze. I don’t edit after the first draft because for me the story is still developing and refining so it’s more rewriting draft after draft after draft. I edit when I think all the rewriting is done and then do a round of scene editing (targeting and compressing) and then several rounds of line editing—chopping, pruning, tightening, and polishing up. Done? Not really. I print it out in a different font and “ruler read” the hard copy line by line to catch what I may have missed. I’m often surprised what I find reading the black and white hard copy compared to reading on the screen. Hard work, but who is afraid of that anyway?

Great distinction between editing and rewriting! I rewrite as I’m writing (usually) ie stop forward progress and go back to fix any major issues that have cropped up. Then (again, usually) the plot is complete and as I want it to be once I type the end.

Hi Anna. Good stuff here. For me, Paula’s distinction between editing and rewriting is an important one. What I am doing at the moment is a rewrite. And this one is a post-feedback rewrite. In other words, I already went through rewriting and editing, sent it out for critique, and am now addressing issues that arose. And, for me, that requires a different mindset than what I consider editing requires. I have to be willing to tear it apart, to ditch portions, to add new elements and weave them through. Right now my WIP is in four or five different docs. And I’m not at all sure all of it will go back into the final doc. After this is complete, the ms will (hopefully) be ready for an editing pass. And may I just say, four or five chapters before you need a break? Wow! Do you mean in a single session? If so, you’ve got far more focus and stamina than I do. My hat’s off to you.

Thanks for the tips, Anna! And particularly for the heartening message of your final segment. Best to you with your current project.

Insightful as always, Vaughn! Yes, I can edit 4-5 chapters in a work day (sometimes all at once, sometimes broken up by kids’ sleep schedules or whatever) but that depends on whether it’s a stretch that I’m editing or rewriting– two different beasts, as you say. A rewrite I’d take much more slowly.

Anna,
Everything you say here makes good sense to me. I especially love what you say about cutting, i.e., don’t be afraid to throw out whole chapter if it doesn’t belong. Time away from the writing is essential for me, too. And your timing for this post is perfect for me. I’m in the middle of a revision which I’m hoping will bring me to the finish line, and I’m approaching the middle of the story. I can feel the muffin-top in there, waiting to be snipped. I like to work on hard copy for this process of cut and paste and reshape. Somehow, I see it all more clearly. Thanks for an informative post!

Hard copy can be great for helping to view your work objectively. I even find that just putting it on my e-reader rather than my laptop helps. Good luck with the edits! I love the visual of the muffin-top. :)

Thanks, Anna. I recently finished editing my new book, and for the first time, I felt like this stage of the writing process went well.

What I’m finally realizing – a little later in the game – is that editing my own books is a separate skill that needs as much work and development as any other part of storytelling. I get great feedback, both broad and specific, but I’m still working on how to turn the feedback into changes in the text.

Because of my day job (academic line editor), smoothing out the book, line-by-line, comes a little easier, but what I struggled more with was shaping general impressions about characters, inserting stronger/clearer motivations, etc.–the broader pieces.

This article comes at a good time for me as I’m almost finished revising my 2014 NaNo novel. I resonate with many of your points, but I definitely wrote a short first draft (53,000 words) and have been expanding it ever since (it’s nearly 95,000 now and the end is in sight!). One thing that fascinates me about revising is the way it happens in layers. When I think my manuscript is pretty good, I find new areas to improve… but I realize that if I had seen ALL those flaws at once I would never have been able to start editing!

Thanks for sharing, Anna. I love how you alternate the Do’s and Don’t’s. That structure alone is great advice. Finding balance in every area of the writing journey is essential if we want to reach publication.

For me the crucial Do is the time-off between writing and rewriting or editing. I’ve discovered it’s best to wait at least a month before going back in. The more details of the story I’m able to forget by working on other things, the easier it is to go in with an objective eye.

Now I really look forward to those moments while I’m either editing or revising when I come across a passage and say, “What the heck does that mean? CUT!” What’s even better is when I realize what I replace the mess with is oh, so simple. Then I have to laugh and wonder why I didn’t say it that way to begin with.

Excellent piece, Anna, thank you. When I write, I never edit along the way. I call it a brain dump. I keep at that pace until the entire story is finished. During this creative writing process I read about 9 books, a mix of fiction and nonfiction that all pertained in some way to the theme of my novel. From Anna Karenina to the biography of Charles Manson, and American Psycho. This in addition to the required research I needed (Kundalini Yoga, Argentina’s districts, food and wine, narcissistic personality disorder). When I was “done” with the story I did a first pass, reading the entire book without editing anything, but keeping in mind the arc, and primary versus secondary characters descriptions, scenes etc. On the second pass, I tweaked dialog, further tightened the story. Only on the third pass did I tweak sentences and mull over the right word with the thesaurus. On the 4th pass I ran a search for over a hundred words to see how many times they were used, and if on consecutive pages. You will be surprised at the result of this exercise. Next comes the beta readers, and further tweaks. Then last is proof reading for typos and those darn commas.

I am working on my debut novel and a newbie to longer works. I can write short stories with no problem, but novel length is daunting. I may be a bit dense here, but I am really confused between the distinction of rewriting and editing. I always assumed they were the same. Aren’t you editing when you rewrite? What am I missing? Thanks for the help and I will save this for later. :)

Hmmm, I think the distinction probably varies from writer to writer, depending on your process. I would call a rewrite ripping out a chunk of your novel– or a character, or a character’s arc– and replacing it with something entirely different. Editing for me is more about polishing/refining/sharpening what’s already there without making a complete change. Good luck on the novel! It is daunting at first for sure– for everyone!– so good for you for having the courage to take the plunge!

Thanks so much, Anna! That makes sense to me. I know there are so many different editing forms, such as developmental editing and copy editing. It is a lot to take in, but I am excited to do it. This is a lifelong dream for me, and now I am retired, I can devote most of my time to writing.

I did my first draft in a small feedback group of novel writers, creating my work chapter by chapter over a period. Feedback groups are an excellent idea, because you can usually trust a judgment if two or more in the group agree with it. Now I’m going through the chapters again with the same group. What I’ve found is that one person in the group is excellent at seeing the trees, rather than the forest, while I like to also consider the whole text. My friend forgets previous chapters and how they link up with others that follow. She finds it hard to see in a wholistic way, yet is good at the sentence level. I’m now encouraging members to do summaries of all chapters, to try to get around this problem.